The Worst Diets For Weight Loss

The best and most successful diets all have something in common — sustainability. The more weight you want to lose, the longer you’ll have to stay on a specific diet.

At the other end of the spectrum are the worst diets imaginable, that you can’t follow for more than a few days or weeks. These are miserable meal plans that destroy your soul, and question your desire to have children. Yeah, they’re that bad.

These are the worst diets for weight loss. They’re not even worth trying.

All Day Fasting

Everyone knows you have to create a calorie deficit to lose body weight. All day fasting is an attempt to create the mother of all deficits. Instead of a moderate and sustainable daily deficit of 200-300 calories, fasting creates an immediate 1500-2000 deficit.

Sounds amazing, right?

If your life’s ambition is to lie motionless in a puddle of drool like a zombie, then this diet’s for you. You ‘ll see the scale tick lower and lower every morning as you struggle to walk (or crawl) ten feet to reach the bathroom.

If you couldn’t tell, I hated this diet.

You can absolutely lose several pounds a day with fasting. Not eating food tends to have that effect, but it’s a miserable existance and unsustainable. You can’t lose a lot of weight, because you can’t do it for more than one day a week.

Juice Diets/Detox

The most well known variation of the juice or detox diet is the Master Cleanse. Popular among celebrities, most noteably Beyonce who lost over twenty pounds in a few short weeks for a movie role using this specific diet.

So how do these diets work?

It’s a liquid diet consisting of lemons, peppers, soups and appetite suppressants mixed in to help you get through the hell known as a cleanse. You don’t realize how miserable you are with headaches, fatigue and dizziness until you’re several days in.

The other problem with these types of diets is the weight loss is only temporary. You can lose weight fast if followed strickly. Not many people can argue with the short term results. If you stop eating solid food, and only consume liquids you’re going to lose weight quickly.

The weight also comes back very quickly once the liquid diet is over, and you return to normal eating.

The One Food Diet

Every few years there’s a new “one food diet” fad. The grapefruit diet has had considerable staying power, and has been around for decades. There’s also the cabbage, banana, watermelon and other variations of the one food diet.

It works pretty much how it sounds. There’s this one food that you’re allowed to eat, and only that one food. You’re told of the magical properties of this one food, like they just discovered where all the unicorns have been hiding.

If there was a one food diet that featured chocolate cake, that would be amazing. But it always seems to be some disgusting food that no one ever eats. Eating cabbage all day has some side effects that you’re probably already aware of.

You can lose a few pounds, but really the only thing you’ll accomplish is a newly formed hatred for bananas.

Finding A Diet That Works For You

A bad diet will usually have some common traits, usually involving your willingness to continue. Before you try your next diet make sure you can check these boxes.

Sustainability

Take an honest view of the diet and meal plan and ask yourself if it’s something you’d be willing to do for the next six months. Even if it’s only a one or two month diet, make sure it’s something you can live with for an extended period of time.

If it sounds like you’ll be miserable, it’s probably true.

Food Variety

No one wants to feel like they’re being punished while dieting. It’s important to have a wide variety of food choices for health, nutrition, and happiness. If you’re unhappy with your meals every day, you’re more likely to quit.

Permanent Weight Loss

What’s the point of losing weight if it’s going to come back once the diet is over? You’re just going to be stuck in a cycle of perpetual diets. That’s madness.

Avoid gimmicks and fads, and look for a diet that instills good eating habits that will stay with you for the rest of your life.

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